An opportunity to appear for high-volume queries
Historically, we’ve prioritized category pages, especially those targeting high-volume queries.
For instance, we’d prefer to rank for a broad “jeans” category page rather than a more specific “men’s ripped jeans” page.
However, with Google now acting as a de facto category page, we need to shift our focus to long-tail queries.
This shift offers a significant opportunity, particularly for brands that aren’t dominant players.
For example, searching for the highly competitive query “jeans” typically returns major brands like American Eagle, Levi’s and H&M.
Unless you’re one of these national retailers, most SEOs will tell you to ignore this query completely. It’s way too competitive to be relevant for.
However, what happens when I start filtering using the options on the side?
Google is now my category page, so I want to see options that suit me better. I’m looking for “size 36 flare jeans.”
I applied the filtering options, and Google adjusted my query.
Now, looking at the search results, we see that we still have some big players.
However, notice how smaller brands are eligible:
Rockstar Original.
boohooMAN.
True Religion.
They’ve optimized for the long tail and are now included.
The beauty of this is that they’ve latched on the primary query, “jeans.”
By optimizing for the long tail, they now get visibility for a query that was never possible before.
A tough time for affiliate sites
Google’s change also has large implications for a completely different type of site: affiliates.
With all the products, rich features and comparisons, there is simply no room for affiliates.
Informational content doesn’t serve an Amazon-like experience, so it’s deprioritized.
Take Wirecutter as an example – the affiliate site everyone wants to be like.
Unsurprisingly, they have a “Best Coffee Makers” article.
It used to perform really well for the query “coffee machines” – generally between Positions 2 to 4. Checking today, it’s pushed down to Page 2.
The entire Wirecutter site has experienced significant traffic declines over the past year, with a drop of ~6.7 million in total monthly organic sessions.
This isn’t even factoring in Google-owned features like the product grids.
However, because Google wants to be the new category page, affiliate sites don’t figure into the mix.
Sure, we can argue that other factors are at play. Reddit’s increase in organic might be one.
However, it still showcases the downward spiral of affiliate sites in today’s product-driven SERP.
Moving forward
From a business perspective, Google’s direction becomes clear when we consider all its recent changes.
Google will continue refining the search results to mirror a category page experience.
Don’t expect Google to roll back these changes. We need to anticipate more of them.
Google hasn’t started showing these aggressively in AI Overviews yet, but I guess it will.
To compete with Amazon, Google will continue to do what it needs to make its platform more friendly for ecommerce searches.
Retailers must understand this behavior and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Dig deeper: How to make your ecommerce content more helpful
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